Cracks
by doctorwhorox97
Summary: Every time Inara sees Captain Malcolm Reynolds, he seems more of a broken man. One-Shot


The first time Inara met captain Malcolm Reynolds, he seemed rather a nuisance. Irritating, obnoxiously righteous, arrogant and unconsciously prejudiced were the outward traits of his personality. But she wanted the shuttle, and he offered it, so she stayed, despite his many faults. As they talked with one another, yelled at one and other, smiled at one another and generally got to know the other, he became more than that. It seemed every time she saw him, he was a little more broken.

His eyes were shattering in slow motion, new fractures and old combining in those ever deepening orbs. She had seen him get cheated, get hit, get shot, get cut. She saw him burn with anger and drown with loneliness. She saw the way he clung to the people he'd gathered. He clung to Kailee's innocence and optimism, qualities he'd lost long ago. He clung to the Sheperd's faith, something that disappeared for him too far in the past to ever return. He clung to Wash's sense of humor, and his open book emotions. He clung to her vitality, how she wishes he knew this whole time how she clings to it too, but that is of no matter. And he clung to Zoe, who proved to him that his past did not need to ruin him. His heart was broken and sometimes his mind was too.

Yes those cracks spread farther every time. She saw it first when Kailee was shot, the anger stayed with him long after he dealt with the offender. She saw it after he observed the reaver torn bodies, a little of that despair never left his eyes. She saw it after his encounter with Niska, his vision sometimes fluttered to life when he slept. But she didn't see the worst of it, the extent of it, the depth of it, until she saw him loose someone. Yes when Tracy fell, each time he died, she saw him break a little more.

These were the fresh fissures. The people he had loved, though he never really admitted it, were those who could shatter him completely. He could take the swindling, the beating, the shots and the cuts. He could take all that pain and all the fear that he faced every day. But when he lost someone he trusted, those cracks in his eyes reached the edges, they broke apart and revealed underneath them a layer of cold denial. He shut down when Tracy died. The coldness took over for a bit, especially since he had been betrayed. But that was nothing. Nothing compared to what would come.

When he found the Sheperd wounded and dying in the blistering heat, that's when the cold started to crack. A member of his crew had fallen, and that was when his shell of denial got its first fissures. She saw the core of pain and anguish start to spill from underneath, and it only got worse from there. He didn't know, but she stood just behind the door as he conversed with the assassin. He clung to that cold denial, flung feigned apathy at the alliance puppet, but even his foe could see the truth speaking from beneath. He stood over the offending screens with anger and sadness resonating from him.

When he came back to the surface of the planet from that encounter, pieces had fallen off, his anger was burning through his cold walls, but his pain still hid behind that. It wasn't until he reached that lifeless planet. Not until he plugged in that fateful disc did he come apart completely. There was all of him, stripped of all his walls, stripped of all his covers. He was shattered, he was a creature of pure pain, as if he were bleeding from all over. He stood with the posture of a defeated man, unable to accept that which was in front of him. Unable to accept any more of the fearsome anguish that already composed him.

When he turned around, and saw all of them, saw the cracks start to form in their eyes, she thought he might finally accept his love for them. She thought he might lean on her and Kailee, let some of his emotion be shared, be divided, be accepted. But he only held her tear stained eyes for a moment, less then that, and then he flung up walls and left the room, already forming a solution, a suicidal last stand, something to try to fix those cracks.

He kept it together through Wash's death, knowing Zoe needed him to. His mind was on his task. If he could get this done, he could fix these newest wounds. He could dull some of that pain. But when he came back down, blood soaked and finally looking how she knew he felt, he had nothing left. It was done, as he said, and his voice quivered, something she had never heard it do before, when he asked about River.

But as the doors opened and there she stood, she saw one last layer of him. As the assassin admitted that the captain had won, the final layer of Malcolm Reynolds came out. The one that he kept hidden deepest of all, that he protected with all his heart, his mind, his eyes, him self. Hope came shining through all those cracks, like the light that came shining through that shattered wall.

As life continued on, some of them started to mend. The cracks for Wash turned into scars as he watched the funeral and Zoe's closure. The cracks of braving all those Reavers started to mend as he washed and repaired his treasured ship. The ones she was happiest to see heal though, were those she had created. When she had told him she was leaving so very long ago, she had seen them form. Now she stands in front of him, and with the words "I don't know," she sees them close. "Good answer." There are smiles on both of their faces, he turns and walks away, she turns and does the same, but pauses as she hears him speaking to River.

"Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home."

He's got his boat. He's got his crew. He loves them all, and just came as close as he ever will to admitting it. She can hear a few more of his cuts healing, his bruises fading as he lets the words free and shares his burdens. His eyes are filled with scars and walls, and still there are so many cracks. But the pain is back underneath, his back upright at the helm of serenity once more, and here she is, not wanting to let him go.

She does not want to see the cracks it will create when she tells him. It's why she left in the first place. She is sure that the news that she is terminally ill will make a canyon down to his heart. Which is why she told Simon earlier today, and why she is smiling now, because she has new medicine coursing through her heart, her mind, her eyes, her self. And she can feel her own light shining through her cracks. Perhaps they should both let their hope be seen a little more often.


End file.
